1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rack-and-pinion steering gear device.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
Rack-and-pinion steering gear devices are well known in the art. One major concern about steering gears of this type has been to make efforts to adjust the backlash between the rack and the pinion or to eliminate lost motion or play therebetween. For example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 45(1980)-23041 discloses a coil spring used to urge a rack shaft resiliently against a pinion shaft. Another attempt disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 43(1978)-30333 employs an adjustment screw for adjusting the resiliency of a coil spring which resiliently urges the rack shaft, and a pinion holder by which the pinion shaft is angularly movably supported and which is angularly movable with respect to a housing around an axis normal to the pinion shaft.
In the aforesaid conventional proposals, the rack shaft is resiliently biased against the pinion shaft to adjust the backlash and eliminate the lost motion. Since, however, the rack shaft is relatively heavy, the device used to resiliently urge the rack shaft is required to be relatively large. Furthermore, it has been difficult to eliminate the lost motion or clearance without impairing smooth meshing engagement between the rack and the pinion.